Chapter 88: Freya's Gamble
The air in Freya Navarro's office was unnervingly still, a silence amplified by the faint hum of the ENCLAVE headquarters' advanced systems. She stared at her terminal, the cold light of the holographic display illuminating her sharp features. Her chest tightened as she watched the encrypted telegram vanish into the system, a desperate plea sent to Robert MacCallum. It was done.
Freya sat back in her chair, a hand running through her dark, neatly tied hair. She'd taken an unthinkable risk, and if Elias Draven discovered what she'd done, the consequences would be immediate and severe. Her encrypted message had bypassed standard protocols, a cry for help to someone ENCLAVE had deemed an enemy. The thought of her actions sent a shiver down her spine, but it was necessary. Someone had to act.
Her gaze flicked to the window overlooking the sprawling campus. From her vantage point, the orderly rows of drone hangars and control centers seemed like a bastion of civilization. But Freya knew better. Beneath ENCLAVE's facade of scientific precision and progress lay an agenda steeped in calculated apathy, one that was now being shaped by Elias Draven, a man whose ambitions she barely understood but feared nonetheless.
The recent disaster in Edinburgh haunted her. The destruction, the chaos, it wasn't just a natural anomaly. Freya's gut told her it was something far darker, something deliberately unleashed. ENCLAVE had turned a blind eye, refusing to respond under the guise of policy: "No intervention unless requested by local governments." It was a convenient excuse. Edinburgh's government, shattered and fragmented, couldn't even organize a proper distress call. And Elias… Elias had ensured it stayed that way.
Freya's hands hovered over her keyboard. She couldn't access ENCLAVE's restricted files on the disaster directly. Elias had locked them down, citing security concerns. But there were other ways to piece together the truth. Surveillance drone data, energy signature readings, and environmental anomaly reports, if she combined them, maybe she could uncover what was happening in Edinburgh and why Elias seemed content to let the city burn.
Her fingers moved swiftly, navigating the labyrinth of ENCLAVE's database. Access Denied flashed across her screen in bold red letters. Freya cursed under her breath. Of course Elias would block direct access. He wasn't just meticulous; he was paranoid. She switched tactics, opening secondary feeds from the drone networks assigned to Edinburgh. If she couldn't look directly into the files, she'd analyze the data they ignored.
Streams of video footage filled her screen, grainy clips from drones circling the ruined city. Freya's heart sank as she watched the devastation: buildings reduced to rubble, fires smoldering in the distance, and streets crawling with spectral wolves, the Cu Sith. The footage made her stomach churn. These weren't random disasters. The presence of creatures from folklore was no coincidence.
Then she saw it: a distortion in the video feed. Rewinding and slowing the footage, Freya squinted at the screen. There, trailing behind a pack of Cu Sith, was something… unnatural. A ripple, like a mirage warping the air, shimmered softly. It wasn't visible to the naked eye, but the drone's sensors picked it up. Freya's mind raced. Her pulse hammered. What was it?
She cross-referenced the drone's data, pulling up energy readings from the same time stamp. The anomaly registered as an intense heat signature, off the charts. It was more than just residual energy from the creatures. It was active, deliberate. Freya's chest tightened. This wasn't a natural disaster; it was orchestrated.
Her fingers paused over the keyboard as a knock at her door jolted her from her thoughts. Freya's pulse quickened. She minimized her screen with practiced ease, her expression neutral as she called, "Come in." The door slid open, and a junior technician stepped inside, holding a tablet. "Dr. Navarro, Councilor Draven requested a report on the drone activity over Edinburgh," the technician explained. "He said you'd have the most recent analysis." Freya's stomach sank. Of course Elias would want to monitor her work. Forcing a polite smile, she nodded. "Tell the councilor I'm still compiling it. He'll have it by the end of the day." The technician hesitated, then nodded and left. As the door slid shut, Freya exhaled, her cool stoicism was slipping. Elias was watching her. She'd known it was only a matter of time, but the realization didn't make it any less suffocating.
She turned back to her terminal, her thoughts racing. If Elias suspected her, she'd have to move quickly. Her hands returned to the keyboard, this time opening encrypted backdoors she'd built into the system months ago. She accessed archived communications logs, searching for any trace of Elias's directives regarding Edinburgh. One name appeared repeatedly in his correspondence: "Project Fragment." Freya's brow furrowed as she dug deeper. The files were heavily redacted, but she gleaned enough to piece together the outline. Elias wasn't just ignoring Edinburgh; he was using it. The destruction, the chaos, it was all part of a larger plan to destabilize major cities worldwide. Fragmented societies, divided and weakened, would be easier to control.
Her breath caught as the implications settled over her. Edinburgh was a test run. If Elias succeeded, other cities would follow. Freya suddenly had a thought. She needed to get in touch with Robert. She does not want to be complicit with the extermination of millions, or billions, of humans to whatever twisted plan was coming to fruition. She murmured, thinking out loud, "We just finished construction of a new 'research facility' in the highlands, further west of Robert's settlement at that old dig site. She had friends there, people she personally interviewed and hired for the positions." "Samantha Fulke! She'd always been fiercely honest," Freya mused. She was only a secretary, but… Freya picked up her personal phone, and called. It was probably only about 6 pm there, she might be able to get through. Rings once. Then again, CLICK "Hello, This is Samantha," she greeted softly. "Samantha! It's Freya! How's it going out there?" Freya asked, her voice tense but hopeful.
"Oh… uhm, Hi Freya. Its really scary, actually. All the guards are acting really funny, and the turrets on our walls are fully automated and active. Do you know whats going on??" Samantha replied, her voice shaky. Freya sighed quietly to herself and gazed at her office ceiling, considering what to say. "I kind of do. But I need your help. I need you to get one of the burner phones from storage and wrap it up. And then go to your computer and enter these codes in the Drone tracking system," Freya instructed. She walked Samantha through the steps she needed to take, to get an enclave burner phone on a hijacked drone, that she alone would control. Freya walked her through all of the steps to reprogram an automated drone to change its feed from the Centrally controlled AI mainframe, to a direct connection to her personal laptop. The next time drones were sent to investigate Edinburgh, one of them would be hers and deliver a package to Robert.
About 36 hours later, that moment came. Freya spent her time trying to dig into what's happening to Edinburgh. The world had received word, some of the news stations were talking about other nations response to some natural disaster they had happen. Oddly enough, England had not responded, citing emergencies and unrest that they had to pacify first, leaving Scotland all alone. Not that they could help. She got a glimpse of that horrifying skinless Centaur. "Ew! Its so disgusting… all those poor people…" The death toll was unthinkable. That Enclave may have had something to do with this, or at best, chose not to aid, filled her with a deep, unshakable anger.
At home, she flipped through channels, when her laptop beeped at her to alert her that her drone had taken off with the others to begin a surveillance mission. Accessing the feed, she watched it soar, at an impressive speed toward Edinburgh. When it finally arrived, she took direct control. There was an unfortunate delay, but she was able to do well. Reducing speed, she pulled off from the other drones and started scouting what appeared to be military checkpoints, for refugees to follow into the middle of nowhere, south of Edinburgh. As she circled around, she saw it. A portal. Not like the ones that were spitting out monsters in various parts of the world, Mexico, China, Peru, a volcano in Hawaii to name a few, but this one was a clean neat arch shape, and who would be standing in front of it, but Robert, and his allies.
She tried to put them all in facial recognition, noticing Robert already. A freckled-faced girl with smooth straight hair and a button nose: unknown. A young man, who… admittedly was astonishingly attractive and wielding two glowing swords. A partial match to an ex-soldier, dishonorably discharged for criminal activity and disobeying direct orders that resulted in the deaths of his commanding officer and friends. That can't be him though; Hamish should be pushing his upper 60's, not this young-looking guy standing there by Robert, unless ENCLAVE's intel is way off.
"Stop that, focus Freya. It's not the time," Freya scolded herself. There was a curly-haired busty young woman gazing at Robert. There's no intel on her either. "Where did you find these people, bro? They don't exist!... Hang on… This one does. Captain Montgomery Scott, Scottish Military. Interesting… must be helping get survivors out of the city. Perfect. That's the one," Freya muttered.
Licking her lips briefly and preparing to focus, she got comfortable in front of her laptop. Sitting in her high-rise apartment with an incredible view, she hunched over her screen wearing a loose-fitting fuzzy bathrobe and a towel wrapping her hair up to dry. She steered the drone in a circular way and started aiming toward Robert. As it neared, she gently pulled up on the drone and released her payload. The package containing Robert's brand new cell phone had been carefully dropped as she pulled and released control of the drone before it was noticed out of formation.
On auto pilot, it resumed prior commands. It flew over the city, returning heart wrenching scenes of dead civilians everywhere. Men, women, even kids… She started to cry, silently. Only a few Cu Sith remained in this area, thankfully. But then there was something incredibly different. Northern Edinburgh now had… "Is that a new RIVER?" she exclaimed to her sleeping cat, who lifted its lazy eyes and mewed lazily at her, as if answering her question. But it was true, she could clearly see it right there… a huge misshapen circle, easily 30 feet wide, full of water that sparkled with a fascinating shine, where roads used to be.
What she saw beyond that would haunt her nightmares the rest of her life. Hordes of Cu Sith, trapped in the circle of water, shredding every surface they could get their teeth on, but in the center of it all, roaring in fury, was the most hideous creature she had ever dared to imagine. "My god… Elias… what have you done…" Freya whispered, her voice trembling.
She snapped her laptop shut, and held her phone, willing Robert to call her.